Mr. Everett then, turning the tube over and over in his hands, said to one of the others in a low tone:
"After all--perhaps the best service we could do for our country and the world would be to bury it again--where it would lie forever and ever!"
That night, for the second time, Mr. Everett, with Pat, came to the Quinn kitchen. But this time he was accompanied by Aunt Pen and Renée, too. They made a very loud noise at the doorstep, as though dragging to the door some heavy object. Mr. Everett insisted that the three small Quinns must stay up and to make it certain drew little Dare to his knee.
"We're going to have a regular ceremony," declared Pat so solemnly that Mrs. Quinn nervously fell to lighting more gas jets and Sheila sent Matt off to the sink to wash the jam from his face.
"We must decorate Mr. Paddy Quinn for distinguished service," Pat finished. So the boys with shouts dragged Paddy from his basket--for Paddy believed in an early bed-hour--and set him in the centre of the merry circle. Thereupon Mr. Everett produced a handsome collar decorated with a red, white and blue bow and allowed Dare to fasten it about the shaggy neck. Everyone laughed at the comical picture Paddy made in his gay decoration! Then a knock came at the door and in trooped Peggy and Keineth, trying to look as though they had not known what had been happening!
Mr. Everett rose with much seriousness. "And now that everyone is here I want to present another badge of honor, that has been left in my keeping!" Sheila guessed what was coming! She threw one wildly happy look toward her mother and then stood quite still, blushing. Mr. Everett drew from his pocket the flat tissue-paper package, unwrapped it, and held up the badge of the Golden Eaglet.
"It gives me profound pleasure to return this to Miss Sheila Quinn! May she always keep and give to others, too, her sense of a true scout's honor! It is one of the strongest weapons we can carry!"
His voice was so earnest and the eyes he fixed on Sheila so full of sincere respect and admiration that the laughter in the room suddenly died. As Pat said afterwards: "It was just as though Sheila was a knight and was starting out on some crusade!" And Mrs. Quinn, who knew something of the weapons one needed to fight the battles of life, choked down a catch in her throat and Aunt Pen whispered something under her breath with a look that was like a caress for Sheila!
Then the girls opened the door and revealed a tub of ice cream on the threshold; while two of them were lifting it out of the ice Pat brought in and opened a big box full of dewy-wet pink roses.
Keineth went to the piano and played so that "the fairies danced," and then everyone sang--Dare, holding tightly to one of Mr. Everett's hands, almost splitting his throat in his effort to express his joy!